All 50 U.S. states have agreed to the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma ’s latest plan to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids.

A judge on Wednesday is being asked to clear the way for local governments and individual victims to vote on it.

Government entities, emergency room doctors, insurers, families of children born into withdrawal from the powerful prescription painkiller, individual victims and their families and others would have until Sept. 30 to vote on whether to accept the deal, which calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion over 15 years.

If approved, the settlement would be among the largest in a wave of lawsuits over the past decade as governments and others sought to hold drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies accountable for the opioid epidemic that started rising in the years after OxyContin hit the market in 1996. The other settlements together are worth about $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to combat the crisis.

In the early 2000s, most opioid deaths were linked to prescription drugs, including OxyContin. Since then, heroin and then illicitly produced fentanyl became the biggest killers. In some years, the class of drugs was linked to more than 80,000 deaths, but that number dropped sharply last year.

The request of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean Lane comes about a year after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a previous version of Purdue’s proposed settlement. The court found it was improper that the earlier iteration would have protected members of the Sackler family from lawsuits over opioids, even though they themselves were not filing for bankruptcy protection.

Under the reworked plan hammered out with lawyers for state and local governments and others, groups that don’t opt in to the settlement would still have the right to sue members of the wealthy family whose name once adorned museum galleries around the world and programs at several prestigious U.S. universities.

Under the plan, the Sackler family members would give up ownership of Purdue. They resigned from the company’s board and stopped receiving distributions from its funds before the company’s initial bankruptcy filing in 2019. The remaining entity would get a new name and its profits would be dedicated to battling the epidemic.

Most of the money would go to state and local governments to address the nation’s addiction and overdose crisis, but potentially more than $850 million would go directly to individual victims. That makes it different from the other major settlements.

The payouts would not begin until after a hearing scheduled for Nov. 10, during which Lane is to be asked to approve the entire plan if enough of the affected parties agree.

As Israeli airstrikes pounded Tehran this week—including a direct hit on Iran’s state television headquarters—residents in the capital described a city gripped by fear and confusion.

In exclusive comments to Fox News Digital, an independent journalist based in Tehran, who withheld their name for fear of reprisal, said, “I hate the Islamic Republic, but my country is under attack. Our house was shaking from the blasts and missiles an hour ago while I was in the newsroom covering the news. We are in a war zone.”

According to the journalist, the Israeli strike on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) compound hit hard—physically and symbolically.

ISRAEL-IRAN WAR PROMPTS TRUMP TO LEAVE G7 SUMMIT EARLY

“The studio that was bombed yesterday is part of the regime’s state broadcaster, a mouthpiece for propaganda that has never represented the people. For years, we imagined the fall of IRIB as the final chapter in the collapse of the Islamic Republic. But yesterday, for a few minutes, we were all in shock,” they said. “Ordinary people don’t watch the regime’s TV, but the attack on it felt strangely symbolic—like the world was shifting.”

Another independent Iranian journalist ironically added, “I’ve watched the video of the TV station being bombed while on air over and over again, and couldn’t stop laughing.”

A missile struck the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) during a live broadcast showing destruction of the studio and the reporter escaping to safety. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Despite the chaos, journalists like them are still trying to report. “We don’t know the exact number of casualties, and even the government numbers aren’t trustworthy. We can’t access the attack sites—security forces push us away. And the crackdown on reporters has only gotten worse.”

Internet access has been largely severed. “Most of the time, the internet doesn’t work at all,” they added. “But we try to keep going.”

Another Tehran resident told Fox News Digital they only learned about the scale of the attacks after briefly regaining internet access. “I was hiding during the bombing. I had no idea what was happening. Has the U.S. intervened? Is this going to continue?” they asked.

INSIDE ISRAEL’S SECRET WAR IN IRAN: MOSSAD COMMANDOS, HIDDEN DRONES AND THE STRIKE THAT STUNNED TEHRAN

People gather in the street in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, Jun.13, 2025.  (West Asia News Agency via REUTERS)

The confusion comes as Washington debates whether to join the conflict militarily or pursue a diplomatic resolution with Tehran. Some in the Trump administration reportedly favor a deal to avoid further escalation, while others advocate for a more forceful stance.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s message was seemingly seen by Iranians when he urged civilians to evacuate Tehran. On Truth Social yesterday, “IRAN CANNOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

The result was reportedly swift, resulting in a mass exodus from the capital. “People are terrified,” said a resident of Tehran. “They’re locking their doors and fleeing the city. Roads are packed. But for those of us who stay—it’s not easy either. All night, we hear missiles, bombings, explosions.”

” I don’t want to leave my home. But yes—I’m scared,” they added.

FILE. Iranians rose up in 2022 against the regime. In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows students of the Sharif University of Technology attend a protest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police, in Tehran, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022.  (AP Photo)

They also responded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Monday urged Iranians to rise up, saying, “No one thought the Assad regime would fall, but it did.”

“You’re bombing a city of ten million and telling people to rise up?” adding, “When people are under fire, they don’t start a revolution—they take shelter or flee.”

Protesters have denounced the leader’s incarceration and ban from public office as an act of political retribution.

A federal court in Argentina has granted former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner house arrest to serve her six-year sentence for corruption charges.

On Tuesday, the court decided that the 72-year-old Fernandez’s age and visibility as a political figure made house arrest a reasonable option for her confinement.

Just three years ago, in 2022, the popular left-wing leader faced an assassination attempt, wherein an assailant aimed a pistol at her head. The court cited such dangers in its decision, saying Fernandez’s safety “would become complex in a situation of prison confinement in coexistence with any type of prison population”.

It is not uncommon for courts in Argentina to permit house arrest for individuals of advanced age as well.

The former president’s house arrest must begin immediately, the court ruled. It also explained that she would be subject to electronic monitoring. She will serve out her sentence at her apartment in Buenos Aires that she shares with her daughter and granddaughter.

Fernandez, the court said, “must remain at the registered address, an obligation that she may not break except in exceptional situations”.  Any future visitors to the apartment — outside of household staff, healthcare workers and other approved individuals — will have to be vetted by the court.

The former president’s incarceration comes after Argentina’s Supreme Court last week upheld her conviction and barred her from running for public office ever again.

She was found guilty in 2022 of using public works projects, including roadways, to give beneficial contracts to a close associate of her family, Lazaro Baez. Prosecutors said the contracts awarded to Baez had rates 20 percent higher than normal — a sum that could translate to millions of dollars.

Other scandals have dogged her political career, including accusations of bribery and money laundering. Some of those cases continue to be weighed by Argentina’s judicial system.

But Fernandez has dismissed the allegations against her as political attacks. She had been preparing to launch a bid in this year’s legislative elections, until the ban on her candidacy.

Fernandez served as Argentina’s president from 2007 to 2015, after succeeding her husband, the late Nestor Kirchner.

In 2019, four years after she left the Casa Rosada — the “Pink House” of the presidency — Fernandez returned to the executive branch as vice president to Alberto Fernandez, another left-wing politician.

Both Fernandez and Alberto Fernandez — who share no familial relation — faced sharp criticism for their management of Argentina’s economy, including their heavy reliance on government spending and their devaluation of the country’s peso through the printing of excess currency.

But particularly among working-class Argentinians, Fernandez continues to enjoy substantial popularity, particularly for her investments in social programmes to alleviate poverty.

Since 2024, Fernandez has led the Justicialist Party, the main pillar of opposition against the government of current President Javier Milei, a libertarian. He took office in 2023, succeeding Alberto Fernandez.

Faced with Fernandez’s incarceration, supporters of the former president took to the streets in Buenos Aires to protest over the past week, calling her lifetime ban from public office an act of political retribution.